{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5528", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 5528, "subject": "An Evil Guest science errors", "messages": 6, "voices": 5, "first": "2010-01-04T16:07:18+00:00", "last": "2010-01-05T21:47:48+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gwern Branwen", "address": "gwern0 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-01-04T16:07:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) An Evil Guest science errors", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I forgot to include this in my tone email, but another thing that\nbothered me coming from an engineer is the apparent sloppiness with\nhis scientific assertions.\n\nReis claims that even if humans didn't age, we'd still only get 2 or\n300 years because of accidents and murders and self-slaughter. This is\na classically conservative argument against being interested in curing\naging - you're going to die anyway, and soon - but as far as I can\ntell, his numbers are just wrong.\n\nI have seen statistics to the effect that a 12 year old who stopped\naging could expect a median lifespan of >1000 years before disease or\nsomething else finally got her. But the mortality rates for young\npeople in general are low enough that 2 or 300 years is ridiculously\ntoo little, and we can see this very easily,\n\nhttp://gravityandlevity.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/your-body-wasnt-built-to-last-a-lesson-from-human-mortality-rates/\nmentions that 1/3000 or 0.03% of 25 year-olds will die age 25. (Seems\nreasonable to me.)\n\nIf we assume a cohort of 10x people, and each year 0.03% of them die,\nthen 1000 years from now, 7.4x will still be alive. 300 years from\nnow, 9.15x will still be alive, and 200 years will see 9.42x. It's a\nlow death rate!\n\nEven a little basic figuring would have show 2-300 years to be absurd.\nAnd we can't make the excuse that Wolfe was estimating from the\nmid-40s ages of the protagonists, since the mortality rate cited for\n42 year-olds is 1/750 or 0.13%. Plug in the 1/750 to the formula and\nask for 300 years from now, and 6.7x are still alive. Heck, 2.6x are\nstill alive 1000 years from now. 7/10ths or 3/10ths odds are not\ngrounds for despair and dismissal.\n\nI'm calculating this in a Haskell REPL, GHCi, using this expression\nfor 100 years: 'take 100 $ iterate (\\x -> x - (x * 0.0003)) 10'\n\nYou can see that each step is a year, and each step subtracts 0.03% of\nthe previous year's population-total:\n[10.0,9.997,9.9940009,9.99100269973,9.98800539892008,9.985008997300405,9.982013494601215,9.979018890552835,9.97602518488567,9.973032377330204,9.970040467617006,9.96704945547672,9.964059340640077,9.961070122837885,9.958081801801034,9.955094377260494,9.952107848947316,9.949122216592631,9.946137479927653,9.943153638683675,9.940170692592071,9.937188641384294,9.934207484791878,9.931227222546442,9.928247854379677,9.925269380023364,9.922291799209358,9.919315111669595,9.916339317136094,9.913364415340952,9.91039040601635,9.907417288894546,9.904445063707877,9.901473730188766,9.898503288069708,9.895533737083287,9.892565076962162,9.889597307439074,9.886630428246841,9.883664439118366,9.88069933978663,9.877735129984694,9.874771809445699,9.871809377902865,9.868847835089495,9.865887180738968,9.862927414584746,9.859968536360372,9.857010545799463,9.854053442635724,9.851097226602933,9.848141897434953,9.845187454865723,9.842233898629264,9.839281228459674,9.836329444091136,9.83337854525791,9.830428531694333,9.827479403134824,9.824531159313883,9.821583799966088,9.8186373248261,9.815691733628652,9.812747026108564,9.809803202000731,9.80686026104013,9.803918202961817,9.80097702750093,9.79803673439268,9.795097323372362,9.79215879417535,9.789221146537097,9.786284380193136,9.783348494879078,9.780413490330615,9.777479366283515,9.77454612247363,9.771613758636889,9.768682274509297,9.765751669826944,9.762821944325996,9.759893097742697,9.756965129813375,9.75403804027443,9.751111828862348,9.74818649531369,9.745262039365095,9.742338460753285,9.739415759215058,9.736493934487294,9.733572986306948,9.730652914411056,9.727733718536733,9.724815398421171,9.721897953801644,9.718981384415503,9.716065690000178,9.713150870293179,9.71023692503209,9.70732385395458]" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "gwern" } ] }, { "message_id": "<2852B1452CFA4CA89DD6597AF4E60298@eMachinePC>", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-01-04T16:28:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) An Evil Guest science errors", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Perhaps Chase is using different variables based on empirical data in other \nnon-aging cultures. Perhaps un-aging cultures tend toward more violence and \nrisk. And for self-slaughter, we're talking suicide. We simply cannot know \nthe rates of suicide in cultures where life goes on and on.\n\n--------------------------------------------------" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Gwern Branwen\" \nSent: Monday, January 04, 2010 10:07 AM\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nSubject: (urth) An Evil Guest science errors\nI forgot to include this in my tone email, but another thing that\nbothered me coming from an engineer is the apparent sloppiness with\nhis scientific assertions.\n\nReis claims that even if humans didn't age, we'd still only get 2 or\n300 years because of accidents and murders and self-slaughter. This is\na classically conservative argument against being interested in curing\naging - you're going to die anyway, and soon - but as far as I can\ntell, his numbers are just wrong.\n\nI have seen statistics to the effect that a 12 year old who stopped\naging could expect a median lifespan of >1000 years before disease or\nsomething else finally got her. But the mortality rates for young\npeople in general are low enough that 2 or 300 years is ridiculously\ntoo little, and we can see this very easily,\n\nhttp://gravityandlevity.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/your-body-wasnt-built-to-last-a-lesson-from-human-mortality-rates/\nmentions that 1/3000 or 0.03% of 25 year-olds will die age 25. (Seems\nreasonable to me.)\n\nIf we assume a cohort of 10x people, and each year 0.03% of them die,\nthen 1000 years from now, 7.4x will still be alive. 300 years from\nnow, 9.15x will still be alive, and 200 years will see 9.42x. It's a\nlow death rate!\n\nEven a little basic figuring would have show 2-300 years to be absurd.\nAnd we can't make the excuse that Wolfe was estimating from the\nmid-40s ages of the protagonists, since the mortality rate cited for\n42 year-olds is 1/750 or 0.13%. Plug in the 1/750 to the formula and\nask for 300 years from now, and 6.7x are still alive. Heck, 2.6x are\nstill alive 1000 years from now. 7/10ths or 3/10ths odds are not\ngrounds for despair and dismissal.\n\nI'm calculating this in a Haskell REPL, GHCi, using this expression\nfor 100 years: 'take 100 $ iterate (\\x -> x - (x * 0.0003)) 10'\n\nYou can see that each step is a year, and each step subtracts 0.03% of\nthe previous year's population-total:\n[10.0,9.997,9.9940009,9.99100269973,9.98800539892008,9.985008997300405,9.982013494601215,9.979018890552835,9.97602518488567,9.973032377330204,9.970040467617006,9.96704945547672,9.964059340640077,9.961070122837885,9.958081801801034,9.955094377260494,9.952107848947316,9.949122216592631,9.946137479927653,9.943153638683675,9.940170692592071,9.937188641384294,9.934207484791878,9.931227222546442,9.928247854379677,9.925269380023364,9.922291799209358,9.919315111669595,9.916339317136094,9.913364415340952,9.91039040601635,9.907417288894546,9.904445063707877,9.901473730188766,9.898503288069708,9.895533737083287,9.892565076962162,9.889597307439074,9.886630428246841,9.883664439118366,9.88069933978663,9.877735129984694,9.874771809445699,9.871809377902865,9.868847835089495,9.865887180738968,9.862927414584746,9.859968536360372,9.857010545799463,9.854053442635724,9.851097226602933,9.848141897434953,9.845187454865723,9.842233898629264,9.839281228459674,9.836329444091136,9.83337854525791,9.8304\n28531694333,9.827479403134824,9.824531159313883,9.821583799966088,9.8186373248261,9.815691733628652,9.812747026108564,9.809803202000731,9.80686026104013,9.803918202961817,9.80097702750093,9.79803673439268,9.795097323372362,9.79215879417535,9.789221146537097,9.786284380193136,9.783348494879078,9.780413490330615,9.777479366283515,9.77454612247363,9.771613758636889,9.768682274509297,9.765751669826944,9.762821944325996,9.759893097742697,9.756965129813375,9.75403804027443,9.751111828862348,9.74818649531369,9.745262039365095,9.742338460753285,9.739415759215058,9.736493934487294,9.733572986306948,9.730652914411056,9.727733718536733,9.724815398421171,9.721897953801644,9.718981384415503,9.716065690000178,9.713150870293179,9.71023692503209,9.70732385395458]\n\n-- \ngwern\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<9047.72.171.0.148.1262623416.squirrel@brunians.org>", "from": { "name": "brunians at brunians.org", "address": "brunians at brunians.org" }, "date": "2010-01-04T16:43:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) An Evil Guest science errors", "in_reply_to": "<2852B1452CFA4CA89DD6597AF4E60298@eMachinePC>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "When you are talking about something totally speculative, you can make up\nwhatever result you like, basically, and justify your assumptions however\nyou like.\n\nHey, the Shivapuri Baba took up smoking at the age of 107, and died at the\nage of 137.\n\n\n." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Perhaps Chase is using different variables based on empirical data in\nother\nnon-aging cultures. Perhaps un-aging cultures tend toward more violence\nand\nrisk. And for self-slaughter, we're talking suicide. We simply cannot know\nthe rates of suicide in cultures where life goes on and on.\n\n--------------------------------------------------\nFrom: \"Gwern Branwen\" \nSent: Monday, January 04, 2010 10:07 AM\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nSubject: (urth) An Evil Guest science errors" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I forgot to include this in my tone email, but another thing that\nbothered me coming from an engineer is the apparent sloppiness with\nhis scientific assertions.\n\nReis claims that even if humans didn't age, we'd still only get 2 or\n300 years because of accidents and murders and self-slaughter. This is\na classically conservative argument against being interested in curing\naging - you're going to die anyway, and soon - but as far as I can\ntell, his numbers are just wrong.\n\nI have seen statistics to the effect that a 12 year old who stopped\naging could expect a median lifespan of >1000 years before disease or\nsomething else finally got her. But the mortality rates for young\npeople in general are low enough that 2 or 300 years is ridiculously\ntoo little, and we can see this very easily,\n\nhttp://gravityandlevity.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/your-body-wasnt-built-to-last-a-lesson-from-human-mortality-rates/\nmentions that 1/3000 or 0.03% of 25 year-olds will die age 25. (Seems\nreasonable to me.)\n\nIf we assume a cohort of 10x people, and each year 0.03% of them die,\nthen 1000 years from now, 7.4x will still be alive. 300 years from\nnow, 9.15x will still be alive, and 200 years will see 9.42x. It's a\nlow death rate!\n\nEven a little basic figuring would have show 2-300 years to be absurd.\nAnd we can't make the excuse that Wolfe was estimating from the\nmid-40s ages of the protagonists, since the mortality rate cited for\n42 year-olds is 1/750 or 0.13%. Plug in the 1/750 to the formula and\nask for 300 years from now, and 6.7x are still alive. Heck, 2.6x are\nstill alive 1000 years from now. 7/10ths or 3/10ths odds are not\ngrounds for despair and dismissal.\n\nI'm calculating this in a Haskell REPL, GHCi, using this expression\nfor 100 years: 'take 100 $ iterate (\\x -> x - (x * 0.0003)) 10'\n\nYou can see that each step is a year, and each step subtracts 0.03% of\nthe previous year's population-total:\n[10.0,9.997,9.9940009,9.99100269973,9.98800539892008,9.985008997300405,9.982013494601215,9.979018890552835,9.97602518488567,9.973032377330204,9.970040467617006,9.96704945547672,9.964059340640077,9.961070122837885,9.958081801801034,9.955094377260494,9.952107848947316,9.949122216592631,9.946137479927653,9.943153638683675,9.940170692592071,9.937188641384294,9.934207484791878,9.931227222546442,9.928247854379677,9.925269380023364,9.922291799209358,9.919315111669595,9.916339317136094,9.913364415340952,9.91039040601635,9.907417288894546,9.904445063707877,9.901473730188766,9.898503288069708,9.895533737083287,9.892565076962162,9.889597307439074,9.886630428246841,9.883664439118366,9.88069933978663,9.877735129984694,9.874771809445699,9.871809377902865,9.868847835089495,9.865887180738968,9.862927414584746,9.859968536360372,9.857010545799463,9.854053442635724,9.851097226602933,9.848141897434953,9.845187454865723,9.842233898629264,9.839281228459674,9.836329444091136,9.83337854525791,9.83\n 04\n28531694333,9.827479403134824,9.824531159313883,9.821583799966088,9.8186373248261,9.815691733628652,9.812747026108564,9.809803202000731,9.80686026104013,9.803918202961817,9.80097702750093,9.79803673439268,9.795097323372362,9.79215879417535,9.789221146537097,9.786284380193136,9.783348494879078,9.780413490330615,9.777479366283515,9.77454612247363,9.771613758636889,9.768682274509297,9.765751669826944,9.762821944325996,9.759893097742697,9.756965129813375,9.75403804027443,9.751111828862348,9.74818649531369,9.745262039365095,9.742338460753285,9.739415759215058,9.736493934487294,9.733572986306948,9.730652914411056,9.727733718536733,9.724815398421171,9.721897953801644,9.718981384415503,9.716065690000178,9.713150870293179,9.71023692503209,9.70732385395458]\n\n--\ngwern\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4B422397.6010402@io.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeff Wilson", "address": "jwilson at io.com" }, "date": "2010-01-04T17:21:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) An Evil Guest science errors", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 1/4/2010 10:07 AM, Gwern Branwen wrote:\nI'm calculating this in a Haskell REPL, GHCi, using this expression\nfor 100 years: 'take 100 $ iterate (\\x -> x - (x * 0.0003)) 10'\n\nYou can see that each step is a year, and each step subtracts 0.03% of\nthe previous year's population-total:\n[10.0,9.997,9.9940009,9.99100269973,9.98800539892008,9.985008997300405,9.982013494601215,9.979018890552835,9.97602518488567,9.973032377330204,9.970040467617006,9.96704945547672,9.964059340640077,9.961070122837885,9.958081801801034,9.955094377260494,9.952107848947316,9.949122216592631,9.946137479927653,9.943153638683675,9.940170692592071,9.937188641384294,9.934207484791878,9.931227222546442,9.928247854379677,9.925269380023364,9.922291799209358,9.919315111669595,9.916339317136094,9.913364415340952,9.91039040601635,9.907417288894546,9.904445063707877,9.901473730188766,9.898503288069708,9.895533737083287,9.892565076962162,9.889597307439074,9.886630428246841,9.883664439118366,9.88069933978663,9.877735129984694,9.874771809445699,9.871809377902865,9.868847835089495,9.865887180738968,9.862927414584746,9.859968536360372,9.857010545799463,9.854053442635724,9.851097226602933,9.848141897434953,9.845187454865723,9.842233898629264,9.839281228459674,9.836329444091136,9.83337854525791,9.8\n304\n 28531694333,9.827479403134824,9.824531159313883,9.821583799966088,9.8186373248261,9.815691733628652,9.812747026108564,9.809803202000731,9.80686026104013,9.803918202961817,9.80097702750093,9.79803673439268,9.795097323372362,9.79215879417535,9.789221146537097,9.786284380193136,9.783348494879078,9.780413490330615,9.777479366283515,9.77454612247363,9.771613758636889,9.768682274509297,9.765751669826944,9.762821944325996,9.759893097742697,9.756965129813375,9.75403804027443,9.751111828862348,9.74818649531369,9.745262039365095,9.742338460753285,9.739415759215058,9.736493934487294,9.733572986306948,9.730652914411056,9.727733718536733,9.724815398421171,9.721897953801644,9.718981384415503,9.716065690000178,9.713150870293179,9.71023692503209,9.70732385395458]" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Those more modestly equiped with Excel or Windows' built-in CALC.EXE can \ncheck this by treating it as a survival chance of .9997 per year, and \nraise that value to (for example) 100 years with\n\n=0.9997^100\t(for Excel)\n\nor\n\nclick View | click Scientific\n.9997 [x^y] 100 [=]\t\t(for CALC.EXE)" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com\nIEEE Student Chapter Blog at\n< http://ieeetamut.org >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gwern Branwen", "address": "gwern0 at gmail.com" }, "date": "2010-01-04T21:19:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) An Evil Guest science errors", "in_reply_to": "<2852B1452CFA4CA89DD6597AF4E60298@eMachinePC>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 11:28 AM, James Wynn wrote:\nPerhaps Chase is using different variables based on empirical data in other\nnon-aging cultures." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Which would be? Woldercon?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Perhaps un-aging cultures tend toward more violence and\nrisk." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The intuitive arguments are for exactly the opposite: if your lifespan\nis indefinitely long, you jeopardize indefinitely many years with\nviolence or risk, whereas with aging, no matter the risk you take you\ncan lose no more than 120 years of life. A ceiling on losses\nencourages risk-taking. (Consider recent financial bail-outs...)\n\nI am reminded of some old quips:\n\n Q- Why does the devil keep his deals?\n A- Because as an immortal he has an infinite time horizon of other\ndeals he jeopardizes if he betrays any given deal. Therefore the\nopportunity cost of any betrayal is too high.\n\n Q- What does that make politicians then?\n A- Lower in ethical reliability than the devil.\n-Oldman" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And for self-slaughter, we're talking suicide. We simply cannot know\nthe rates of suicide in cultures where life goes on and on." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If the suicides are caused solely by exogenous factors, then Reis -\nand certainly Wolfe - cannot know this without aging having been cured\nin a normal human society, which it has not, so the statement is\nunjustified. If suicides are caused solely by internal reasons, then\nReis's statement about deaths being inevitable within 2-300 years is\nfalse since people will live as long as they want to.\nAny mix of endogenous or exogenous factors simply makes his statement\na greater or lesser mixture of false and unjustified." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 11:43 AM, wrote:\nWhen you are talking about something totally speculative, you can make up whatever result you like, basically, and justify your assumptions however you like.\n\nHey, the Shivapuri Baba took up smoking at the age of 107, and died at the age of 137." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Entertainingly, I was recently reading\nhttp://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/12/animal-smoking-studies.html and\nhttp://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/12/smoking-followup.html arguing\nthat the actual studies suggest that smoking is only harmful to people\nwith bad/vulnerable lungs (for whom it is harmful enough to skew all\nthe other statistics which we know and fear)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 12:21 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:\nThose more modestly equiped with Excel or Windows' built-in CALC.EXE can\ncheck this by treating it as a survival chance of .9997 per year, and raise\nthat value to (for example) 100 years with\n\n=0.9997^100 (for Excel)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Quite right. If I had thought harder, I would've realized that was the\neasier way to do it - but I'm a Haskeller and the iterate pattern is\nwhat my mind jumped to.\n(It does have the slight advantage of showing all the intermediate\nresults, but that's very slight.)" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "gwern" } ] }, { "message_id": "<4B43B384.5060300@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dave Tallman", "address": "davetallman at msn.com" }, "date": "2010-01-05T21:47:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) An Evil Guest science errors", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gwern Branwen wrote:\nThe intuitive arguments are for exactly the opposite: if your lifespan\nis indefinitely long, you jeopardize indefinitely many years with\nviolence or risk, whereas with aging, no matter the risk you take you\ncan lose no more than 120 years of life. A ceiling on losses\nencourages risk-taking. (Consider recent financial bail-outs...)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "For a Wolfe view of a world with unlimited longevity, look at 'The Doctor of Death Island.'\n\nLife becomes meaningless, therefore cheap. Love is gone. The war between the sexes is literal. Etc." } ] } ] }